BookArt , BA-BR

 Pieces for an upcoming BookArt show in March - my BA-BR series. Four pieces (3 completed) utilizing 95% of Book 2, BA - BR of a 1968 Popular Mechanics Encyclopedia set. 
The last piece will be "Do-it", (words from a portion of the cover) a small, chunky book with the It's fun to repair a broken book,  article from the book, resized to fit its new format.

Left to Right:
*Bookend, sculpture, the bottom 1" of Book 2
*A Home Without Books...   approx 14 x 4 x 9"
*Popular, a composite of page parts from Book 2, gives a glimpse of the text and the era.

Detail of A Home Without Books...

Etched around the base reads, "A Home Without Books Is Like A House Without Windows"

I'm getting a bit freaked about what I don't have done for the show.  If you're local, please check out the show - March, Allied Arts Gallery. Bookart is an exquisite art form, the most intimate and engaging I've experienced. There's no easy way to explain the form, it's best experienced.  Our BookArt group will acts as docents throughout the show to discuss and make available the books to hold and experience.

Valentines Steampunk style

Finished and delivered my cards for DS Watkins First Thursday Art Walk.  These images give somewhat of an idea how they came out.
I was going for a steampunk-ish look. There are 4 different sets, 3 of which are all mounted on ca 1900 photo album pages, the envelopes (not pictured) are made from an 1896 player piano scroll. All pretty much period appropriate for the steampunk "era".   The other set are the simple white ones with a heart mounted in the window. 
This was a fun diversion.  Travel this weekend and back to bookarts next week.

 
Hard to tell, but the center flap lifts
to reveal a tea-stained glassine envelope
with an "I love you" note in front of two
printmaking paper cards for inscribing
your message.
I tediously pried the old black picture corner
things and used them to mount the envelope. 
Fussy but you just don't see them like that
anymore and seemed appropriate.





These were my favorites.  Fun AND easy. Same photo album paper, folded into a long tall shadowbox card.  Each labeled accordingly, (Burning For You, Totally Into You, Totally Wrapped-Up In You, Totally Bound To You)
For these I used the piano scroll paper for the message box as well.

These were totally simple.  Cut out copper hearts from patina'd sheet copper.
Attached with a glue dot to store bought cards.

There are three of another kind (not pictured) more in keeping with the ones up top, but are wearable heart pendants.

Jewelry Making classes!

My friend, April, is starting a jewelry class locally.  She's wonderful - you want to take this class!

Research and Rabbit Holes

I'm working with and in love with this 1968 Popular Mechanic Encyclopedia (PME) set.  What a fabulous bit of work, history, usefulness and plenty of what would now be potential personal injury and class action suits waiting to happen. Plus bringing up old woulds of being a girl with shop-class inclinations at a time when it wasn't available for girls.
Looking for the "right" image in the "right" location for a bookart idea (in the PME) hasn't come yet but led me a merry chase online learning hand signals for scuba divers and research into William Morris designs.
In book 16, VA-ZO -There is a Weed Killers article introducing new chemicals and hope for "embattled homeowners and farmers" followed by (for you over 40 or 50 crowd,) a Euell Gibbons Wild Foods article.   Love the juxtaposition. That sent me online to see if any of those herbicides and pesticides have since been banned.  I still don't know.  What I learned was too depressing to continue.
Thank goodness there is a wonderful William Morris rabbit hole to get lost in...

Hearts and more hearts

Got caught up with hearts again today.  I was just going to cut out a few and they seem to take off on their own accord. The big ones are about 1 1/2" wide.
Lots of fun and will find a way to attach them to cards for DS Watkins First Thursday but I have that nagging -didn't get anything done- feeling.  Too many projects  in-process, I guess.  S'pect I best see some completions this coming week.

daylight studio, steampunk hearts

This is for Jim, studio daylight view.  Didn't want you fretting that I worked in a dismal cave.  :) 

I have an old turn-of-the-(other) century photo album of empty pages that I'm experimenting with for the Valentine cards.  Still roughing out the design but think they'll work out suitably funky and period appropriate too!  The zigsaw cut outs work fairly well as functional closures - cool!.

Steampunk hearts

Wow, doesn't take long to get behind on the posts here - such abundance!
I enjoyed a diversion from current projects though hesitate to post this picture. What they might become in my head is so much cooler than this looks (or fear they won't come out like I imagine?) .  C'est la vie.  I haven't worked with copper and brass for a long time.  Love, love the colors copper can express.

Nearly had something to post :)

I so hoped to have pictures here today.  I put finishing touches to two (of  4 pieces in a series titled BA-BR) then got hung up on the third (main) piece.  It's packaged up to take to RFP Plastics tomorrow to see why the black plexiglas isn't adhering to the clear.  It's a delicate last step and getting very buggered up. :-(
Had all gone according to plan (does that ever really happen?) I'd have finished them AND spent time playing with Hearts for DS Watkins February Art Walk Valentines AND had pictures of the works.   Tomorrow....

Rings, Rings and Repurposing

What's with rings?  I never make rings and have done 3 now.  hunh...
With little time for the studio the last two days, I looked for quick, easy ideas from scraps....

 Yesterday: The salamander/lizard is a failed casting.  Appears its front and back cooled first then snapped at its narrow point before it could set.  The ring portion was once a hoop earring. All sterling.

 Today: This 14k gold-filled ring was smashed and twisted when its stone was removed. I straightened and cleaned it and added three fresh water pearls...  (gold-filled is like gold-plated has a thicker layer of gold).

I didn't want to solder anything for fear the gold would be absorbed into the base metal so I set the pearls in this nifty new product I found called Sugru http://sugru.com/  It's a clay that air-cures.  The color was drab so I added a bit of 23k gold leaf to perk it up.


Two of our kids headed back to Portland tonight so we are back to normal around here. It's been WONDERFUL having everyone home and will also be good to spend tomorrow in the studio.

At the river

Love the new work and all the great comments!
We're still in holiday mode around here, more family arrives tonight., more laughing, more eating.  :)  Things will be back to normal by Wednesday.  Today we took a bit of a walk by the Columbia River at Chiawana Park  Lovely sunny day! 
I dislike and am intimidated by cameras, very much not my comfort zone - though very grateful to have some way to take part with art-a-day right now.  Still learning the ins and outs of my phone and its camera.  It's set for high res images though randomly (seems to me) takes very low resolution.as it did with these - dadgum-it!

Pearl in the Rough

We're in full Christmas mode here.  Windows steamy with three huge pots of Sarrama (stuffed cabbage rolls). .

I made a sterling silver ring this morning.  I don't have material heavy enough for the shank so ran a silver spoon through the rolling mill.  Used a piece of scrap silver for the base, attached a pearl.  The picture came out crap but will post for my "bonifieds"

Inside an alien's head

If you've wondered that I might be a bit off-the-wall, this ought to cinch it.
I had a few hours in the studio, tended a bit to a projects, ground off some rough parts of a broken mug for a friend and then simply couldn't pull together any kind of focus.
Next week, after Little Christmas, I hope to find focus.  For now,  lost into a glob of oozed glue...

Winter Sky

Okay, I take it back, I did capture a new bit of art today.  Plumb forgot about it.  Went out again this morning to try again to get the hill profiles and was staggered by this epic sky.

Making little books

Good to be back in the studio today.  Didn't make an original, completed work today, instead continued on a bookart piece for an upcoming show.  I am destroying perfectly good books, cutting them up and making them look like perfectly good miniature books.  And honest, there is a perfectly good reason.  This is picture from a earlier day but today's work was much the same - though I've learned a much easier, faster approach.
Hope to post an image of the completed work next week.

winter river

I'm trying to capture a good profile of the local hills for a bookart piece and for some reason the last and favorite images turned out very low resolution.  Maybe because my phone had low battery? ( I'm in new-droid overload.)  With my husband on holiday I'm still inclined to hang with him instead of in the studio so I caught a bit of sunlight and clouds at waters edge as my "art" for the day. 

I think, Flood Waters...

...is the name I'll give the piece I've been working on.  It pushes both my skill and comfort zones so is taking probably 3 times as longs as it ought.  And I spend an inordinate amount of time with little asides like looking for the "perfect thing" to put in a little niche you would only see from the back. May have to let that one go,   After about 20 pieces such as this I think I will be getting a hand at it.  Will finish tomorrow and post pictures.

A try at sketching

Decided to head out with sketchbook in hand today.  As I was heading out the door my son said, "go slay some lions".  I showed him the sketchbook and said, "That's what I'm doing."
Things I learned: 1. just because you can turn your head and see more it doesn't fit in the frame of the picture. 2. quit while you're ahead.
3. It's hard not having an eraser.  Good, but hard.
4. I will do this again.  
I was itching to go home to hammer and torch and make something.  I spent 3 more hours on the little house piece then deleted the picture realizing it probably wouldn't look that much different to most of you.

First stop, the library.  The sketchbook was too cumbersome so left it in the car and used the little moleskin booklet I carry.  Using the stubby (and smudgy) little library pencil, here is my experience. Image on backside of paper bleeding through a bit.


Next stop, lunch at Fat Olives, waiting for my salad.  Same pencil.  yes, I filched it from the library.


Columbia Park and the ubiquitous image of Rattlesnake.  This one in pen. 
I was ready to get home so didn't try very hard.  Something to be said for that...  like what Dave said, the more exact, the less interesting.

"Would that I were a glove upon that hand..."

Weary and remorseful from her plunge into the seamy side, our heroine contemplates her cold, empty life.  But wait, what light beyond her awareness breaks?  Things just might be looking up!

Coming along

Stayed in the studio a bit past my effective point today.  Learning that line.  Pushed it today.  Not a good idea.

The Dichotomy of Very Little and Very Big

The magic of Art-a-Day visited my studio today.  Hope I find words...
I finally gave over to the small, exacting work I really want to do.  I absolutely have a *thing* for tiny sculptural scenes, particularly if I can include moving parts or something interactive. This isn't new to me but it also doesn't lend itself to creating something new every day - nor do people tend to take it seriously.  Both of which were tripping me up.  Everything in me wants to give over to this growing body of ideas and concepts.  So I did, and somehow by giving over to these small, tiny, demanding works, by focusing on the micro, the macro opened. I want to take you on the ride but I've only a fleeting whiff so far.
Since adolescence I've had a relationship with micro/macro.  I find magnificence in the mundane and see clear relationship between the everyday and the Universal and the Universal in the minutiae of everyday.  In my mid 30's, gathered in circle, a leader asked us, "What's your mission in life? Quick, write it down before you think." I wrote, "to find the connection and share it."   I've been working on that since and today felt like another key, a new gateway, another step along the bridge of understanding.
I do not expect my small sculptures and scenes to be the big "It" though I do see them as gateways.  Here are some thoughts playing in my mind today, the dichotomies between my skills and the demands of the work seeming analogous to a bridging of some kind...
Small sculptures - vast worlds/ very exacting - very imperfect/ tiny in size - large concept/ 1/64" tolerances - 1/8" tools/  minute focus - vast betweens/ part engineering -part Playdoh/ ideas fluid -  execution challenging/ Tiffany jewelry - High School diorama/ fit in the palm of my hand - later, people sitting inside, sensing the bridge within themselves.
This is a random sketchbook doodle I decided to practice on...